


Just Another Tuesday

by nostalgics



Category: A Simple Favor (2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:33:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29126532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgics/pseuds/nostalgics
Summary: "A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you." - Elbert Hubbard— "it's all good, baby" she says. "just another tuesday." and she doesn't realize how much those words truly mean.
Relationships: Emily Nelson/Stephanie Smothers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Just Another Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea where i'm going with this, so just bear with me

For as long as she can remember, Stephanie Smothers always had a thing for Tuesdays.

It started off simple, like these things often did. Just a series of happy coincidences. On a Tuesday in kindergarten, she learns the days of the week. That same day, she finds a silver penny on the sidewalk walking home from school as her father pokes fun at her for pronouncing it “ _chews-day_ ”, giggling as he pokes at her nose. That’s one of the first, most distinct memories she has.

Her favorite cartoon plays every Tuesday afternoon. Her mom makes spaghetti every Tuesday night for dinner. Stephanie Smothers had the type of picturesque childhood that came straight out of a Hallmark movie. She grew up happy, with white picket fences and tire swings. Blueberry pie-filling smeared across her cheek, orange creamsicles melting over her fingertips. A perfect childhood with perfect Tuesdays.

For a long time, even well into her teenage years, Tuesdays continued to be Stephanie’s day. Her life was always smooth sailing, like it was on cruise control. Her sweet sixteen lands on a Tuesday. Her high school boyfriend asks her to prom on a Tuesday. She gets her acceptance letter from Barnard College on a Tuesday, and her dad takes the entire family out for dinner. He buys the table a bottle of champagne and lets her have her own glass. The waiter winks and turns a blind eye.

It was almost magical, and more than just plain coincidental, that every important moment in her life lands on a Tuesday. It was like the stars were always perfectly aligned for Stephanie Smothers.

Then one Tuesday, only mere weeks before she was supposed to graduate from high school, her dad gets hit by a drunk driver on his way home from work. Stephanie remembers his last words to her that morning before she left for school. “Happy Tuesday, kiddo. Any miracles planned for today?” It was something he said to her every Tuesday morning. He was the only one who also believed in the magic of Tuesdays.

Until he’s declared dead before the paramedics even carry him onto the ambulance, while the other guy walks away with barely a scratch.

Stephanie’s world comes crashing down around her on a Tuesday, and it’s like the world was playing a cruel joke on her this whole time. Like the world built her up on a tower of Tuesdays, only to laugh while kicking it down, as if she was some sort of fool for believing that life was as easy and painless as she thought it was. As if she was some sort of fool for believing in happiness.

The funeral was planned for the next week. Another Tuesday, because the day was already ruined, and Stephanie didn’t see a reason to have another day of the week be a constant reminder of the death of her father. She stands barely a few feet away from the casket, as a pastor whom she’s never met reads a eulogy he probably found on the internet, one he’s probably said so many times for so many other people.

A bright soul, taken from us too suddenly and too soon. Loved by many. A tragedy. It’s the type of sunny Tuesday afternoon Stephanie loves, and all she feels is numb.

Then, that same day, Chris walks through her front door. A man who looks so much like her father that it hurts just looking at him. And just like that, Tuesdays were her day again. Stolen glances, secret meetings, and sneaking around with her half-brother. Almost like playing house, because he looked so much like her father did in the wedding photo above the mantlepiece, and she looked so much like her mother. Just enough that it didn’t feel as wrong as it should have.

She spends Tuesday after Tuesday with Chris, until he has to move back home, and she leaves for college in New York. She all but forgets about him, pushing her and the memories of Tuesdays past, into some dark corner of her memory. It isn’t something she wants to remember.

-

Stephanie meets Davis on a Tuesday. He’s sweet and cute in a boyish way. She bumps into him at the library, and they’re both reading Virginia Woolf books. It was almost as if they were destined to be, and he asks her if she wanted to grab a coffee.

“I’m out of town this weekend, but is next Tuesday okay?” He asks her.

She says yes. And it’s more than just okay. It’s perfect. Coffee turns to walking aimlessly around the city. They do it again the next Tuesday, and then the next. Then it goes from a weekly occurrence to something they do every other day, until they’re all but inseparable. It turns to lounging in his apartment, watching stupid movies and eating greasy pizza until one day, she moves in.

Eventually, she tells him about all the Tuesdays that came before him—of course, omitting a select few. Years later, he proposes on a Tuesday. They get married on a Tuesday. They buy their first house on a Tuesday. Aside from her dad, Davis was the only other person who believed in the magic of Tuesdays.

Then Chris comes back into Stephanie’s life. On a Tuesday, of course.

He shows up outside Stephanie and Davis’ house, light hair tucked under a black beanie, hands shoved into the pockets of dark jeans. Stephanie doesn’t bother asking how he found her. All she notices is how he looks more handsome than she ever remembered, and how when she hugs him, her body fits more perfectly against his than it ever did against Davis.

Davis doesn’t like Chris. He doesn’t like the way he looks at Stephanie. He doesn’t like the way his hand touches the small of her back. He doesn’t like the way he calls her “Steph” when she insisted that she hates being called that. What he likes even less, is how Stephanie looks at him. The way her hand brushes along his arm. The way she smiles when he says her name.

Miles is born on a Tuesday. He is a spitting image of Stephanie’s brother. She says her fathers’ genes are strong. Davis doesn’t say anything. Many Tuesdays pass, and Miles starts to grow up. He’s nearly two, and he talks in full sentences. With each passing day, he looks more like Stephanie’s brother. Davis doesn’t say anything. Davis doesn’t say anything, and he pretends he doesn’t see the way his wife looks at her brother. He pretends he doesn’t see the way his wife’s lipstick is sometimes smeared across her brother’s neck. He pretends he doesn’t see the way his wife looks at him. Like he’s not enough. Davis doesn’t say anything.

It’s a Tuesday when Miles accidentally calls Chris “daddy”. It’s a slip of the tongue, and it’s not Miles’ fault. It’s Stephanie’s. And it’s Chris’. Davis finally says something. Stephanie doesn’t answer. Davis doesn’t need her to.

It’s a Tuesday when he drives his car off the road, with Chris in the passenger seat. Stephanie is better prepared for the world’s cruel jokes this time around. This time around, she wonders if it’s her fault. All of it—her Dad, and her brother, and her husband.

Davis’ funeral is on the Saturday. Chris’ is on a Tuesday.

It’s almost routine now, for Stephanie to push these things to the back of her mind. Tuesdays, and her dad, and her brother, and her husband. She bottles it up and tries to forget about it—and for the most part, she succeeds. Tuesdays pass, and they’re entirely insignificant. Stephanie focuses her energy on Miles.

She starts a vlog, and she posts her videos every Tuesday. Videos that precaution people and parents not to make the same mistakes she has. Videos on how to be a good person and be a good parent. It’s ironic, really, how people think she’s some sort of saint.

-

Miles starts kindergarten on the Tuesday after Labor Day, and that’s the first time Stephanie sees Emily Nelson. It was for a fleeting second Stephanie doesn’t even realize at first—but it’s still the first time she sees Emily, and it’s still a Tuesday. In all of the first day hubbub, it wouldn’t have been unusual for Stephanie to bump into someone—she’s always been clumsy.

She bumps into someone, and barely looks up from her son, only mumbling a quick sorry, momentarily thinking that the other person was rude for not apologizing, then catching a glimpse of a tattoo, and a whiff of some distinctive perfume. It’s insignificant, and Stephanie forgets the encounter by the end of the day.

The first time Stephanie and Emily have their first real conversation also falls on a Tuesday. Perhaps the stars were perfectly aligned, or perhaps it was just plain fate. She still doesn’t make the connection, but this time it’s Emily who forgets the encounter by the end of the day. PTA meetings are held twice a month on Tuesday evenings, and Stephanie focuses all her energy on that. She’s the kindergarten PTA chair, and she brings homemade brownies to every meeting.

People thank her out of pleasantness. They think she takes everything too seriously. But the brownies are good, so they thank her anyway. She makes some offhanded comment about how it wasn’t that hard. How any mom would do the same. How some moms should try harder. She says the last sentence while looking directly at a pretty but tired-looking woman in a three-piece suit much too extravagant for a Warfield kindergarten PTA meeting. A woman who Stephanie doesn’t think ever shows up to these meetings. A woman who Stephanie thinks smells like gin on the few occasions she does.

Stephanie thinks this woman might be a horrible mother, but who is she to judge?

The woman looks at Stephanie challengingly, and cocks an eyebrow. She sits at the far-right end of the folding tables set up in the gymnasium, slouched over, elbows set on the edge, hands tucked beneath her chin. She scoffs.

“Is that so?”

It sends a shiver down Stephanie’s back. The woman sits there casually, but she still commands power. Her stare is cold, but with a hint of something Stephanie thinks might be amusement. It scares her somewhat, but she stands her ground. It hits her just now, that today is a Tuesday.

That’s why Stephanie gives her a curt nod and says “yeah. I just think you could show up a little more.”

The other woman pauses for a second, as if considering what Stephanie said, but doesn’t say anything. Then she laughs and gives Stephanie a mock salute, and an “aye-ay cap’n mommy.”

Stephanie hears stifled snickers from the other moms, and she doesn’t really know what to say. She just shrugs and resigns herself to a seat on the other side of the table, as one of the other moms brings up an issue about the school parking lots. Stephanie agrees with her point, but instead her attention is completely focused on that other woman.

The woman who looks up at her, meeting her eyes, and simply winks. It’s a Tuesday the first time Stephanie talks to Emily, and it reminds Stephanie so much of all the Tuesdays that came before it.

Halfway through the meeting, Emily’s phone goes off and she walks out of the room. Stephanie hears the woman say “talk to me, Dennis” as she walks out. Presumably to some big and important job much more important than this PTA meeting.

Perhaps it was just a happy coincidence, that Stephanie and Emily’s kids happen to be friends. Or perhaps the stars were just perfectly aligned.


End file.
